Tracing Women in Rome: Art, Patronage, and Visual Culture Across the Centuries

This panel explores the central yet often obscured role of women in shaping Rome’s artistic, cultural, and visual identity from the early modern period to the twentieth century. Bringing together case studies that span sacred architecture, funerary monuments, frescoed façades, artistic networks, and modern advertising, the session examines how women—whether as patrons, creators, subjects, or cultural agents—participated in and influenced the evolving image of the Eternal City.
Through investigations of figures such as St. Helena, Alfonsina Orsini de’ Medici, Anna Maria Vaiani, and the Bolognese women active in Rome, alongside analyses of feminine presence in Renaissance façades and postwar visual culture, the papers illuminate the diverse modes through which women negotiated visibility, authority, and identity in Rome’s competitive artistic environment. Collectively, they reveal a richly interconnected landscape in which female agency emerges through architectural patronage, artistic innovation, cross-city networks, and the transformation of gendered imagery in public and commercial spheres.
By tracing continuities and ruptures across centuries, this panel contributes to a broader re-examination of women’s cultural power in Rome. It situates their artistic and social interventions within the city’s wide dynamic history, demonstrating how women have consistently shaped, contested, and reimagined Roman visual culture.